The State government is all set to deliver a sledge-hammer blow to power consumers for the year 2014-15. The power utilities have proposed an additional burden on consumers to the tune of `9,339 crore in the form of increased power tariff.
The APTransco and four Discoms on Wednesday submitted the Annual Aggregate Revenue (ARRs) proposals to the Andhra Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission (APERC) for 2014-15. The APERC will conduct a public hearing before approving the proposals. As it is an election year, the State government may also come forward to give some subsidy to domestic consumers.
After taking all the factors into consideration, the APERC will finalise the new tariff in March, 2014 and the revised tariff will come into effect from April 1, 2014. As the APERC has abolished the Fuel Surcharge Adjustment (FSA) this year, the power tariff proposals included the FSA. As per the proposals, even small consumers would not be spared. Those who consume power below 150 units too will have to pay 50 paise more per unit.
Small industries and LT industries have to pay an extra Re 1 per unit. The power tariff burden is 50 paise per unit for major industries and the customer charges are proposed to be hiked from `20 to `50. On an average, the power utilities proposed an increase of `1.20 per unit. The discoms estimated that they require `52,753 crore revenue for the year 2014-15. But, they will get only `36,345 crore through power tariff and the estimated deficit would be `16,409 crore.
The discoms also estimated that there would be shortage of power in the coming year. The estimated power deficit will be 13,464 million units. This will compel the power utilities to purchase power from outside. The discoms proposed `7,089 crore subsidy for agricultural consumers. The proposed tariff hike has already raised the hackles of opposition parties.